Committee Releases FY25 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Washington, D.C. – Today, the House Appropriations Committee released the Fiscal Year 2025 bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. The bill will be considered in subcommittee tomorrow, June 27th at 8:00 a.m. The markup will be live-streamed and can be found on the Committee’s website.

Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) said, “It’s been an honor to work with the members of this subcommittee to craft a bill that provides needed resources to agencies for administering vital programs, while also reining in reckless and wasteful spending. This bill focuses on ensuring the success of critical programs that affect every American, through supporting our nation’s workforce, increasing access to healthcare for those in underserved and rural areas, and prioritizing targeted education programs, all while cutting politically motivated initiatives pushed by unelected bureaucrats.

"Earlier this year, I authored an op-ed calling for common sense reforms to the appropriations process. This bill is a step in moving forward on these reforms, as reflected through the reduction and elimination of many programs with expired authorizations, and efforts to bring members into the process as early as possible in the drafting of this legislation while also encouraging further partnerships with authorizers.  

"I thank Chairman Cole and my colleagues for working with me to begin these reform efforts, and I look forward to the continued progress that can be made by this Committee in restoring trust with the American people as we work to responsibly allocate taxpayer dollars. While we still have a ways to go, I believe this bill lays a strong foundation for the path to transparency and fiscal responsibility.”

Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) said, “We are directing valuable taxpayer dollars where they can best impact the nation. This bill prioritizes research for novel treatments that can save and transform lives—and we strengthen our medical supply chains and biodefense capabilities. Investments in this bill also support the well-being of the most precious among us: America’s children. The legislation rejects the Biden Administration’s pursuit of divisive programs in education and attempts to disregard the right to life of every unborn child. Instead, each dollar is directed toward initiatives that truly help our communities, students, and workforce. Chairman Aderholt’s work puts our country on a stronger path forward.”

Fiscal Year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act provides a total discretionary allocation of $185.8 billion, which is $8.6 billion (4%) below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted score, $23.8 billion (11%) below the Fiscal Year 2024 effective spending level, and $36.2 billion (15%) below the President’s Budget Request.

Key Takeaways

• Bolsters our national security by:
  • Providing $48 billion in funding to support biomedical research, which is necessary to counter China’s growing threat in basic science research.
  • Strengthening America’s biodefense and countering global health security threats by providing more than $3 billion for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, an increase of nearly $200 million above the President’s Budget Request. 
  • Prohibiting the purchase of supplies from China for the Strategic National Stockpile, which supports expansion of the domestic industrial base for these items. 
  • Reducing funding by 60% for nongovernmental organizations facilitating the flow of minors illegally crossing the border.
  • Securing the nation’s food supply by rolling back the Biden Administration’s burdensome one-size-fits-all regulations leading to the closure of small family farms. 
• Focuses the Executive Branch on its core responsibilities by:
  • Eliminating 57 programs, including 21 that are not authorized.
  • Cutting funding for 48 programs.
  • Rejecting new programs in the President’s Budget Request such as Climate Corps, divisive school diversity initiatives, and drug-use advocating “harm reduction” programs. 
  • Reducing funding for ineffective, duplicative, and controversial K-12 education competitive grants by $1 billion (50%).
  • Reducing funding for the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Social Security Administration offices due to reduced in-person staffing.
  • Focusing the CDC on communicable diseases rather than social engineering.
    • Reducing funding by 22% and eliminating 23 duplicative and controversial programs while increasing funding to combat emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases.
  • Helping state and local communities combat substance misuse.
    • Providing mental health services through significant increases to the SAMHSA Substance Misuse Prevention and Mental Health Services block grants while reducing funding for programs that support the active misuse of narcotics.
  • Prioritizing funding for early education, childcare, child welfare, and programs for seniors and the disabled.
  • Increasing funding to educate children with disabilities in every school district.
  • Increasing funding for career and technical education to support local programs for students who are not seeking a college degree.
  • Increasing funding for charter schools to support students and families seeking better schooling options.
  • Maintaining funding for Pell Grants at the maximum discretionary amount of $6,335, combined with mandatory funding of $1,060 – the total Pell award for the next school year continues to be $7,395.
• Supports American values and principles by:
  • Maintaining the longstanding Hyde Amendment and ensuring no federal funding can be used for abortion on demand.
  • Maintaining the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a legacy rider that prohibits the creation or destruction of human embryos for research purposes.
  • Prohibiting NIH from using human fetal tissue obtained from an elective abortion to be used in taxpayer-funded research.
  • Prohibiting funding for Biden Administration activities to promote abortion.
  • Eliminating funding for Title X family planning and stopping funding from going to abortion-on-demand providers, like Planned Parenthood.
  • Prohibiting funding for Biden Administration executive orders and regulations that promote divisive ideologies, like Critical Race Theory, or infringe on American due process rights and religious liberties.
  • Maintaining the longstanding Dickey Amendment, which ensures that federal funds cannot be used to advocate or promote gun control.
  • Prohibiting funding for schools that support antisemitic conduct or which discriminate against religious student groups.
  • Prohibiting funding for medical procedures that attempt to change an individual’s biological sex.
  • Prohibiting the Biden Administration’s student loan bailout.
  • Prohibiting the Biden administration’s independent contractor rule, liberating 64 million American women, seniors, and others balancing work with family responsibilities to participate in the freelance economy.

A summary of the bill is available here.

Bill text is available here.

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